


nine years on

by bmouse



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon Cardassia, Shaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-02-19 17:14:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2396348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmouse/pseuds/bmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elim Garak never imagined a future where he'd have to shave his husband for summer. Luckily, that's the one he's got. A glimpse into a little ritual between an old married couple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nine years on

Summer is coming and Chu'ri'en does not look surprised to see the old tricorder and the blanket over the lounging mat when he rises out of the bath. 

"Ah, I was wondering where you went. That time already?" he says around a yawn and with utter trust he touches his cheek to Garak's in greeting/salutation and lies belly-down in front of him, stretching his long body out and letting his wet hair expose his nape. 

Garak's eyes narrow. He's recently fresh from the hot pool himself, steaming slightly from the trip upstairs for the supplies. He gives a play-warning growl in his softest register and gently cups and squeezes the warm, provocative neck. His husband smirks into the blanket. Honestly, such behavior at his age. 

This little ritual of theirs begins, it is the ninth. 

Chu'ri'en doesn't have much hair on his back. It's only the darker brown ones that have to go, not the soft fine under-down hairs that cover every Human, so before the trickier parts of the work begin Garak generally uses the time to reflect.

Thankfully it is another year when hasn't failed in his duty. His lovely doctor is, as the common saying goes, a terrible patient but Garak's experience caring for rare transplanted flowers has transferred and despite almost a decade of Federation years in a harsher climate the Human is healthy, thriving. 

The slim body he had known has thickened slightly, in the arms and through the waist. The Homeland demands a little more in the way of service than the Federation, where Lieutenant Bashir was hardly taxed to lift more than the occasional crate of supplies. But Garak has seen the proud flash of teeth under a coat of clean sweat and can shrewdly guess that his friend enjoys the full use of his strength.

Some change is inevitable, familiar, since this is one of the few physiological similarities in their species; this slight padding out to signify the passage out of youth. He is no longer a young man. Now they are no-longer-young together and sometimes Garak is tempted to say, ‘Isn’t this a good place? To have experience enough to know when strength is needed and to have it come when called but also to enjoy the bouts of stillness, of sunbeams making their slow way down one’s back. How nice to have you here with me, my dear!’ but he is sure his husband understands.

Stroking his hand soothingly down his flank he moves the device down to start on the backs of the legs where they lie; thin, sinewy and carelessly outflung. Chu'ri'en is dozing a little and he repays the trust by pressing down firmly with the towel following the curve of his rump, all the way down to the pinkish-brown bottoms of his feet to forestall any bouts of ticklishness. A pity though, to see the little dappling of water droplets disappear from his skin. Ah, though it does remind him of a time he had gripped his calves and tongued the backs of his knees until he bucked and shook and nearly screamed. 

In his other hand the device hums as he passes it over his calves and the man on the mat echoes it with a content rumble in his chest.

Amusing as it is, the outward signs of maturity in his doctor; the faint lines across his forehead, the pretty veins rising in his hands, have lent yet another degree of social legitimacy to their marriage. Now that both of their crests had silvered they were suddenly a local institution. As if it was perfectly regular to love, house, and eventually enjoin with an officer of the opposite side. 

He has always been proud though, and cannot view his bold manoeuvre of luring away the best part of his exile to his side after the war with anything but profound satisfaction. ‘Look’, he wants to say to them all ‘I met him when he was a barely-budding branch and he came into my hands in the full flower of youth and he’s been mine all these many years. All the love-marks on him are mine. Mine are the charming threads of conversation from his quick mind and mine is the eager warmth of his mouth.’

Habit, however, has left him a circumspect man and he merely lets the angle of the smile deepen on his lips, content that he one of the few lucky ones to know that the skin of a Human’s throat became softer with age. 

Finished, he presses a kiss and then a lingering impression of teeth into Chu'ri'en’s lower back, just above where his flesh splits so temptingly and then reaches over to the little bottle of massage oil to drizzle a few small rivulets across the faintly reddened denuded skin. When he has finishes spreading it the quality of his husband’s breathing has changed, no longer quite so even and relaxed.

Garak burrows his hand between skin and the mat to find the Human’s warm belly and pushes up a little.

“Now the front, you lazy creature.”

Showily his doctor complies, the way his chin is tilted up to expose his throat is in no way accidental. An opening that cannot stand unanswered. Ducking his head Garak gives into the impulse to rub his nose and cheeks against the stubbled jaw, enjoying a texture he won’t see again until late Fall. 

He is indulged, for a short period where his husband seems to be torn between laughter and less innocent sounds, and then firmly pushed away by warm hands.

“Feeling diligent are we? No, no _you_ should finish your task. If I’m left furry for another month I will surely suffer.”

“Then you should keep still.” 

He puts a palm on the center of his chest, brushing the soft dark curls there and applies a little pressure. With gratifying speed and one last smirk the Human stretches his arms upward and leaves them there, pushing his chest into Garak’s hand, who thinks with amusement that he must look like a curator bent over a strange but beautiful statue; perhaps an artwork too erotically charged for the public collection. Though a statue would not squirm as he moves the depilator over the fragrant patches of fur under its arms. Knowing his cue Garak moves to straddle the Human’s hips, holding each arm gently but firmly by the wrist as he works. First one then the other.

Next, his face - a delicate task but one he has learned the method of. Finished with one side he lets his hand sink into the Human’s hair(coaxed to a proper length at last) and turns his head with the slightest motion of his wrist. Satisfying, that. After he’s done he licks a stripe from the smoothed jaw to the temple, rewarding himself with a that flavor burst of salt and indefinable life force. The following kiss is perfectly timed to silence any protesting sound.

Instead of playful indignation the Human’s hazel eyes are sharp and more than a little smugly triumphant as he pulls away. ‘Still can’t resist me’ they say. He has no counter argument, except a certain marked reciprocity: the way the man beneath him is keyed up, the charmingly frank bits of color in his cheeks and lips and elsewhere as he lies still, practicing adult self-control even though his body is singing out in youthful readiness.

Perhaps to argue this point is why he moves slowly, working his way down the throat, across the chest, carefully circling the peaked dusky nipples that are normally so assured of his attention. Ah but there are hipbones to consider, the indentation of the Human’s navel and the vulnerable inner thighs, obligingly spread. Everything in between.

Concentrating he cups, touches, lifts as his steady hand controls the device and his patient responds in kind by keeping the work area steady - what would ordinarily be trembling expressed only in the little movements of eyelash and lip. In little hitches of breath. And then he is finished, his own breathing having grown unsteady in his chest as he watches the beam of light from the window catching on slivers of green in Chu'ri'en half-opened eyes. 

Garak buys himself a little time by carefully wrapping the old tricorder in a scrap of Tholian silk before setting it aside. It isn’t enough. He would need more: handfuls and handfuls of minutes to climb a little down off this peak, to have his ridges return to their normal color, but he won’t take them.

The light lingers lovingly over his husband’s skin as he rolls to a crouch. 

“That took longer than usual, didn’t it?” he says playfully, in that roughened voice and Garak’s fingers twist into the cloth. What an admirable quality, to regain control as quickly as one gives it up. Garak has never mastered the trick himself, that’s why he has maintained such a strict policy on personal surrender. Except for these past nine years.

“I suppose I was distracted.” 

“No, that won’t do at all. It’s your turn now, your favorite part.” In Chu'ri'en’s hands another set of little bottles clink. Another, heavier cloth and little exquisite polishing brushes are laid out. And it’s certainly very practical of them, this reciprocity. His scales could use the extra oiling as a buffer against summer’s harsher wind. Oh there is no reason to lie to himself, but he tries to keep in practice, tries not to shiver too visibly.

“Come here, my antique silver husband. Time to polish you up.”

Kneeling on the mat Garak bends his neck and lets his dearest lift up his hair.

 

~


End file.
